Page 45 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

Clearly someone who hates me.

Heights are officially the worst.

When my girlfriends declare at Café Roussillon over eggs, potatoes, and croissants that today istheday, I shake my head. “Au revoir.”

“Marley,” Bethany says, with a squeeze of my arm and a peppy grin, “You can do it.”

She’s Rosie the Riveter, tough and badass, but I’m undeterred.

Heights and I don’t get along. “I know I can. I don’t want to,” I say to my college roomie, who wants nothing more than to shoot up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

“Are you truly saying you don’t want to view all of Paris, drink in the vistas, see the Seine cutting across the city like a ribbon?” Emery asks with a sweep of her arm.

I laugh at the image she paints. “You sound like a travel brochure.”

“And travel brochures should be followed,” she declares as she takes her last bite of egg.

Bethany sips her café noisette—she’s gotten me addicted to them—then says, “Paris is for shedding fears.”

“And we did that by ordering escargot the other night,” I point out as I set down my fork.

Bethany shrugs. “Fine. That was a little terrifying.”

“And seriously, thank you for encouraging me, and you are the best, but I swear I have enjoyed seeing the Eiffel Tower from the ground,” I say as we pay the check, then leave some euros on the table for the waiter.

“Merci,” I call out as we exit and I walk with my friends to the most famous landmark.

This is our last hurrah trip before the three of us scatter across the United States—Bethany to law school in Texas, Emery to a job in San Francisco, and me to business school, starting next week.

Emery pouts. “They say the line will take about two hours, and then we thought we’d do the Montparnasse Tower too. Knock out all the heights today without you.”

I nod approvingly. “I like that idea.”

“What will you do?” Emery asks.

“Something on the ground,” I say playfully as we walk past a gorgeous stone building with curling ironwork framing the tall windows.

What will I do?

I will wander.

It’s the thing I like most.

Walking.

Seeing.

Looking.

“I’m going to meet some fabulous Frenchman,” I muse as we enter Champ de Mars, the park at the base of the tower. “Have a tryst in a secret passage somewhere in the city, tucked off on a quiet cobblestoned street; kiss a handsome stranger as Édith Piaf plays; and then have a glass of wine and tell my secrets to the river.”

Bethany gives me the evil eye, then looks at Emery. “And why are we going to the top of the Eiffel Tower? I want to go with her and have a secret tryst with a gorgeous Frenchman.”

Emery purses her lips, her eyes twinkling. “Dinner’s on us tonight if you do have that rendezvous. Because you will be entertaining your besties with details.”

I stare at the tower, as if deeply considering the offer. “Let me get this straight. If I have a secret tryst, I get one, a tryst; two, a free meal; and three, the memory of the tryst? Sounds like I’ll win.”

Emery narrows her eyes and stomps her foot. “She bamboozled us. I want what she’s having.”

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